Tech Firms, Others Urge Court to Give Fourth Amendment Protection to CSLI Data

The Supreme Court should rule that cell-site location information (CSLI) is fully protected by the Fourth Amendment, said technology companies, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and other civil society and attorneys groups in separate amicus filings in Carpenter v. U.S. They were among several amicus briefs filed Monday. The high court in June agreed to hear the case that could decide whether law enforcement agencies will be required to get a warrant to obtain historical cellphone location data of individuals (see 1706050006). Airbnb, Apple, Cisco, Dropbox, Evernote, Facebook, Alphabet's Google and Nest Labs, Microsoft, Mozilla, Snap, Twitter and Verizon and its subsidiary Oath said CSLI reveals a "wealth of detail about people's personal lives" and they should "reasonably expect to retain significant privacy." The coalition said firms may use and share such data to create or improve services. EFF's coalition said law enforcement is finding CSLI "increasingly useful" because they can "not only place suspects at specific crime scenes, but can also reconstruct almost anyone's movements for many months in the past." Both filings said the third-party doctrine, which says a user can't have a reasonable expectation of privacy when information is voluntarily given to a third party, is outdated. EFF described it as "ill-suited in the digital age" after a 6th U.S. Court of Appeals ruling last year that said CSLI isn't protected because it's a business record held by third-party providers. The coalition said just because data may have been "traditionally classified as 'non-content'" it shouldn't bar Fourth Amendment protection and courts, instead, should focus on the sensitivity of the data. The American Civil Liberties Union listed other filings from organizations including the Center for Democracy & Technology, Electronic Privacy Information Center with 36 tech and legal experts, and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and 19 media groups.